The quest of a clear understanding of the truth about God and man has aroused interest at all times, from earliest history. This inherent interest accounts for the numbers of followers that have gathered to the fold of every reformer, from the greatest prophet to the preacher on the street corner.
The prophets of old, having clear visions of man's relation to God, endeavored in vain to teach the people the spiritual truth which appeared so plain to them, but their flocks caught only glimpses that enabled them barely to recognize it as truth, and did not understand the teaching sufficiently to apply it in their common problems. Therefore people were led slowly, and sometimes with great difficulty, progress being in proportion to the spirituality of the leadership which was guiding them. "In divine Science," Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.576), "man possesses this recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of God." Even the prophets themselves had their periods of darkness, which is plainly seen by comparing the perfect law revealed to Moses in the Ten Commandments, with the many idolatrous laws of health given out by the same prophet, such as the cleansing of the lepers with the blood of birds and lambs, described in the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus.
How to put into comprehensible words the clear visions of Truth revealed to the prophet must have been a great problem, as is evidenced by the struggles recorded in the Old Testament. Instances of the use of much tact are recorded, as in the case of Naaman, who, in order that his healing of leprosy should be accomplished, was advised by Elisha, "the man of God," to bathe in Jordan seven times before his dispositional traits of pride and prejudice could be brought into subjection to spiritual Truth.
